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Friday, November 9, 2012

Anarchist Conference April 19-21: Hunter College (1974)

Attendance was off from last year; according to some, "thousands" had
attended the conference the previous year. This year, possibly several
hundred attended. Women were definitely in the minority -- at times it
appeared to be by two to one. The list of workshops was exciting but
they often overlapped, sometimes didn't even happen for lack of
attendance or because some workshops were more desirable than others, or
were lost to participants who arrived at the designated meeting-place
too late. The Political Theory and Action workshop ran continuously
through the weekend with large numbers (mostly male) attending. (This
workshop seemed to have been organized in part by Judith Malina and
Julian Beck of the Living Theater. It was referred to as a sort of
continental congress where some articles of federation would be
written.) Directly next door (on Sunday) was the Androgyny and Anarchy
workshop attended by only four people. The contrast was a clear
statement of the priorities of the people attending the conference.

Friday night the first anarcho-feminist workshop was held; women I
talked to had not been satisfied with it, too much time spent on
introductory raps and talking about problems with construction workers.

saturday no better
Saturday afternoon few of those women seemed to be at the next
anarcho-feminist workshop. It started late and women making their way
from the somewhat congested lounge followed signs reading "Anarcha-Feminists,
room 300". Before we got started, an agitated woman came to the door:
"a man downstairs says you won't let him in and everybody is freaking
out!" We were a little mystified, there was a man sitting near me
holding a baby. Then, did we object to the presence of men? At that
point some women came to the door saying that there would be a meeting
for women only across the hall and a few women left with them. We had
made a much larger circle of desks than we had needed and we felt
depressed and isolated by the split and empty classroom desks. We
started by talking about the split; some of the women had felt inclined
towards the women-only rule but hesitated to impose rules on attendance.
Several more men and women came in; one man said that as a faggot he
understands his own oppression but feels that he has a lot to learn from
sisters. None of the other males said why they had come and after a
while it wasn't clear why any of us were there.
abolish the family

The discussion was somewhat aimless despite efforts by Lynne Farrow of
Aurora magazine to talk about what anarcho-feminism is; and Gypsy, a
woman from a street theater collective who spoke of radical alternatives
to the oppressive nuclear family. Apparently the only topic that people
really felt comfortable with was that of child care. (I think the
discomfort came from the presence of men who were wandering in at an
alarming rate.) Gypsy was talking about the state's control of
our-selves through the patriarchal institution of the nuclear family and
that it was necessary "to abolish the family" so that a free society
could evolve. Some didn't like the word "abolish" and its connotations.
Especially since many people will always participate freely in family
structures. Also, some were concerned about the fact that the
impermanence of extended families or communes makes for less workable
solutions to child care. These women were biological mothers and knew
from experience, or sensed, or suspected that no matter what the
alternative, the biological mother was ultimately the one responsible
for child care. Judith Malina spoke of a community in Uruguay that
rotated all domestic and work responsibilities successfully at six month
intervals. (This community cares for the Tupamaros children.) Children
in this community have a good deal of autonomy and are not solely the
responsibility of the biological parents. One of the women present lived
in a commune where there was an equitable sharing of child care.
Another woman told us about a children's house in Berlin where the
children live collectively and make all the rules; one of which is that
no adults are allowed. (More information on this in "Issues of Radical
Therapy".) A biological mother pointed out that it was always
non-mothers who held such utopic visions of child care alternatives.

A child care discussion is a child care discussion. It was disturbing
that at no time was the oppressed role of the female in the nuclear
family acknowledged. Child care is a central issue for women (mothers
and non-mothers) and children who want self-determination; where do
utopic communes in Berlin fit in? Somewhere I hope. It's important that
children have autonomy and some alternatives to the ways they are now
raised. But, as a woman pointed out, I'm not a biological mother.

I left, sorry that I had waited so long to go across the hall. Women
were talking from personal experiences with collectivity and the women's
movement:
- The lack of role models for women in working collectively.
- Problems with women taking power.
- How women confer power upon other women.
- Problems that come up in project-oriented groups when the service rendered becomes more important than the women themselves.
- The voguish aspect of sisterhood.
- The wrongs done in the name of sisterhood.
Two women from the other workshop came in soon after me. We talked
about the failure of that group to talk about anything constructive. We
also talked about the other workshops being dominated by articulate and
experienced speakers and our alienation from the conference.

Again, some women were dissatisfied with this workshop, that no
practical matters relating to anarcho-feminism had been dealt with. I
felt comfortable for the first time at the conference and enjoyed being
able to share my thoughts with other women and having some sense of
relevance.

lack of direction
I attended 2 1/2 of the four anarcho-feminist workshops that were held;
I noticed that almost none of the women came to the next workshop.
Apparently there is a limit to the time we can spend in general
discussions; which is exactly what the result was when we came for such
different reasons-curiosity; to learn more about anarcho-feminism; or
even just to meet and talk to other women, and from such different
places.

In order to give some direction to the
Sunday noon gathering, a woman had written "Socialist Feminism
Discussion" on the workshop list. We found a comfortable corner in the
lounge (most people had given up with the classroom and desk atmosphere)
and decided that the group should be for women only. We talked a little
about the lack of direction in the other workshops and how we should
avoid it but as the group began getting larger it was hard to hold to
any direction. An anarcho-feminist from Ann Arbor talked about the
tracking system in that city; she works with a collective putting out
FPS, a youth liberation news service. She brought up the interesting
point that it is difficult to work with women without getting co-opted.
This led into some discussion about structures. In Boston, according to
one woman, women are moving towards decentralization, and even Marxist
feminists are participating in anarchist study groups at the women's
center. We also discussed health care, the problems of working in
project-oriented groups and sometimes the apolitical nature of some
health and abortion referral services. However this quickly degenerated
into a two-way conversation about herbal medicine.

Again and again in discussions with other women who had been in the
workshops, we talked about our mutual feelings of not having progressed
in any sense after the workshops had ended. I still don't feel qualified
to discuss what anarcho-feminism is. A definition is elusive. Possibly,
the synthesis is contradictory except that anarchist men are, as a
rule, sexist and hard to work with. Can you be an
anarcho-feminist-separatist?

theorizing: yes or no?
In an article published in Aurora magazine, Lynne Farrow says that
feminists are the only individuals and groups putting anarchist
principles into practice; working and living collectively, providing
alternative services and communications. This was clear in the workshops
where most women had a lot of experience with collectivity and working
on projects but didn't hold to an anarchist philosophy per se. The
attitudes towards this are interesting; some see it as the strength of
the women's movement that we aren't overly concerned with theorizing but
instead are applying our politics in practical ways. But others feel
that the lack of theorizing, or the downgrading of theory constitutes a
weakness of the movement and makes for the lack of role models, or
worse, facilitates the evolution of project-oriented individuals.

A communications network was established by mutual agreement at
workshops. A newsletter that would contain all letters written by
anarcho-feminists would be published and mailed by anarcho-feminists in a
different city each month thus sharing the responsibility. Hopefully
this will provide a better forum for communicating our perceptions of
anarcho-feminism.

"To create a viable woman's
culture we have to go beyond all accepted structures, even those of the
so-called counterculture for all known social structures have been the
creation of male society, cultures which have accepted dominance,
competitiveness, power relationships and territorial and social
aggression to be both universal and inevitable.

"People who have not been able to relate on this level, i.e. women,
children, gay people, peasants, `mad' people, have been dismissed with
contempt as unworthy of consideration, reviled, oppressed, destroyed.
Yet, even though ignored by male historians, groups of people have
always resisted. Now our resistance has become collectivised.

"We are working to create a society where individual and collective
needs do not automatically cancel each other out, where the sharing of
tenderness, pleasure and joy is primary, not secondary, where guilt is
unknown because there are not structured role relationships, no classes,
no hierarchy, no discrimination or domination of one group by another,
where living doesn't involve a choice between mere survival and the
realisation of our deepest desires."
-- Proposal for Workshop on Anarchism and Feminism (Anarchist Conference, 1974)

Last month self-proclaimed anarchists and ...sted in how anarchism
relates to our personal/political lives got together at Hunter College
in New York for the purpose of just getting together. While there were a
few joyful learning experiences about that weekend, for the most part I
felt once again that communication had failed among folks who, quite
simply, just want to get it together.

Where I
felt it most strongly (and where I felt it first) was the first workshop
on the relationship between anarchism and feminism. For myself, I know
how feminism relates to my everyday life, both on a theoretical and
practice level. My association with anarchism has not been so complete.
We were a group of 30 women, with varying political and personal
backgrounds. Some of us had come from the male left, for some the
women's movement has been their first concrete political experience.

I had come to the anarchist conference because of my conviction that
total revolution will not be realized until we, as people with radical
perspectives, understand that a political revolution must be accompanied
by a psycho-social/sexual revolution as well. What this means to me
then is that our most fundamental personal lives have to be totally
integrated within radical political perspectives in order that all
distinctions between our personal/political lives are eliminated.

For me, at this stage of political development, the women's movement
has come closer than any other political structure in effecting change
in my life.

During the workshop there were a few
feeble attempts to define anarchism, but since, as one woman noted,
definition is elusive, some women were no clearer on it after they left
the conference. The discussion, despite the protestations of some women
(including myself), continually gravitated towards men and how do we
deal with them. It wasn't on the level of how do we work or not work
politically with them, but more on the level of how do you respond to a
construction worker's sexist remarks?

I'm tired
of reacting, I'm tired of forced responses, but I'm also getting very
impatient with heady, theoretical discussions with little or no effect
on my personal life. One woman, Kathy, who is working with the Black
Rose anarchist collective in Boston, commented during the workshop that
none of us really know how to survive, so what this means is we have to
create.

come! unity press
On the second day of the conference, Come! Unity Press, an anarchist
printing/communications collective in New York, held a workshop to
exchange ideas about methods of organizing anarchist skills collectives
-- the problems, economics, distribution, life-support. Come! Unity
Press, which one collective member said has both sexual and social
connotations, came closer to a living definition of anarchism than any
other experience that weekend.

Housed in a huge
loft on the third floor of a run down building on the east side, the
collective prints as well as creates a good portion of movement
literature for the alternative community in New York. They have no
system for billing, no fixed charges. Groups and individuals give what
they can. They print no black on white, use color and overlays freely
and creatively. All their equipment was acquired through a hand-me-down
arrangement with the Quakers, who used to run the press there. What is
even more important is they are into sharing skills, so that anyone who
wants to learn more effective techniques to communicate has that option.

Most of the people who came to the print
workshop are involved in alternative communications in one form or
another. We spent time talking about the problems of living and working
as much as possible outside the system, as well as ways we could support
each other. There was a sense of sharing and creativity that I had not
felt thus far at the conference, particularly in the feminist workshop
the night before. The problems for all of us are the same: distribution,
economics -- basic survival, and so there seemed to be a real
willingness to exchange and explore ways we can support each other.

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Anarcha: Mother of Gynecology

It was after being part of anarcha.org that I learned of a woman named Anarcha, having nothing to do with anarcha-feminism, but whose story is very relevant. I was reminded of her recently by my friend Will who wants to study midwifery. Anarcha was a slave who was experimented on by a gynecologist numerous times without anesthesia.Anarcha: Mother of GynecologyAnarcha's Story